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ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



JOHN G. NICOLAY. 




BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, & CO. 

1882. 






Copyright, 1882, 

By John G. Nicolay 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), sixteenth president 
of the United States of America, was born in Hardin 
County, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809. His father, 
Thomas Lincoln, and his mother, Nancy Hanks, were 
both natives of Virginia, as was also his paternal grand- 
father, whose ancestors came from Berks County, Penn- 
sylvania. When Lincoln was eight years of age his father 
moved to Indiana, in what is now Spencer County. The 
region was still a wilderness, and the boy grew up in 
pioneer life, dwelling in a rude log-cabin, and knowing 
but the primitive manners, conversation, and ambitions 
of sparsely settled backwood neighborhoods. Schools 
were rare, and teachers only qualified to impart the 
merest rudiments of instruction. " Of course when I 
came of age I did not know much," wrote the future 
president ; " still somehow I could read, write, and ci- 
pher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not 
been to school since. The little advance I now have 
upon this store of education I have picked up from 
time to time under the pressure of necessity." In 1818 
his mother died, and his father a year afterwards mar- 
ried again. When nineteen years of age Lincoln made 
a journey as a hired hand on a flatboat to New Or- 
leans. In 1830 his father emigrated to Macon County, 
Illinois, and Lincoln aided in building the cabin, clear- 
ing a field, and splitting rails to fence it. The locality 
proved unhealthy, and general sickness made them 
resolve to abandon it. Being now twenty-one years of 



4 \i:i: aiiam LINCOl n. 

age, Lincoln hired himself to one Ofratt, in Sangamon 
County, assisting him to build a flatboat and float it 
down the Sangamon, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers to 
New Orleans. Afterwards Offutl made him clerk of 
his country store al New Salein. This gave him mo- 
ments of leisure to begin self-education. He borrowed 
a grammar and other books, and soughl explanations 
from the village schoolmaster. Next year the Black 
Hawk Indian War broke out; Lincoln volunteered in 
one of the Sangamon County companies, and was elected 
captain. He was already a candidate for the Illinois 
legislature when this occurred ; his printed address " To 
the people of Sangamon County" bears date March 9, 
1832, and betokens talent and' education far beyond 
mere ability to " read, write, and cipher." The Black 
Hawk campaign lasted about three months; Lincoln 
shared the hardships of camp and march, but was in no 
battle. He was defeated for the legislature that sum- 
mer, being yet a comparative Btranger in the county, 
but received a flattering majority in his own election 
precinct, where also, a little later, local friendship, dis- 
regarding politics, procured his appointment as post- 
master of New Salem. The purchase and failure of :i 
small country store having burdened him with debt, the 
county surveyor of Sangamon opportunely offered to 
make him one of his deputies. He qualified himself by 
study in all haste, and entered upon the practical duties 
of surveying farm lines, roads, and town sites. "This," 
to use his own words, "procured bread, and kept body 
and soul together." 

The year 1884 had now arrived, and Lincoln was 
chosen one of the members of the Illinois legislature, 
lie was re-elected successively in ls:!l'>, 1 s:-JS, ami 1M<>, 
after which he declined further nomination. At the 
two latter terms he received the complimentary vote of 
his part) friends for Speaker, they being in the minority. 
During the canvass of 1884 his political friend and 
Colleague, John T. Stuart, a lawyer in full practice, 
strongly encouraged him to study law, and lenl him 
text-books to begin his reading. Lincoln followed his 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

advice, and, working diligently, was admitted to the 
bar in the autumn of 1836. On April 15, 1837, he 
quitted New Salem and removed to Springfield, which 
was then the county seat, but soon after became the 
capital of the State, to begin practice in partnership 
with his friend Stuart. His legislative experience was 
still farther enlarged by his service of one term as 
representative to the Congress of the United States, to 
which he was elected in August, 1846. He had become 
an eloquent and influential public speaker, and in sev- 
eral campaigns was on his party ticket as Whig can- 
didate for presidential elector. Though to some extent 
still mingling in polities, Lincoln now for a period of 
about five years devoted himself more exclusively to 
the study and practice of law, his repeated successes 
drawing him into the most important cases. 

In 1854 began the great slavery agitation by the re- 
peal of the slavery prohibition of 18'20, called the Mis- 
souri Compromise. Aroused to new activity by what 
he regarded as a gross breach of political faith, Lincoln 
entered upon public discussions with an earnestness 
and force that by common consent gave him leadership 
of the opposition in Illinois, which that year elected a 
majority of the legislature. This would have secured 
his election to the United States Senate, in the winter 
of 1854, to succeed Shields, a Democrat; but four op- 
position members, of Democratic antecedents, refused 
to vote for Lincoln, who was yet called a Whig, and by 
their persistence compelled the election of Trumbull. 
The Republican party of Illinois was formally organized 
in 1856; the campaign resulted substantially in a drawn 
battle, the Democrats gaining a majority in the State 
for president, while the Republicans elected the gover- 
nor and State officers. In 1858 the senatorial term of 
Douglas, author of the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise, was expiring, and he sought re-election. Lincoln, 
who had four years before successfully met him in 
public debate, was now by unanimous resolution of the 
Republican State Convention designated as his rival 
and opponent. Yielding to the wish of his party friends, 



t; 



Al'.KAli \M LINCOLN. 



Lincoln challenged I touglas to a joint public discussion. 
The antagonists mel in debate a1 seven designated 
points in the State, while they also separately addressed 
audiences in nearly every one of the hundred counties. 
At the November election the Republicans received a 
majority in the popular vote, but the Democrats, through 
a favorable apportionment of representative districts, 
secured a majority of the legislature, which re-elected 
I touglas. This remarkable campaign excited the closest 
attention from every part of the Union. Lincoln, ad- 
dressing the convention which nominated him, June 
Hi. 1858, opened the discussion with the following bold 
prophecy: — 

■■ A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this 
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. 
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the 
house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will 
become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of 
slavery will arrest the further spread of it. and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate 
extinction ; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, — old as well as new, North as well 
as South." 

Lincoln's speeches in this campaign won him a na- 
tional fame, which was greatly increased by several 
made in Ohio the following year, ami especially by his 
Cooper Institute address in New Fork City, February 
-~, i860. .More than any contemporary statesman he 
had, in the long six years* agitation, insisted that, tran- 
scending tin- technical point of constitutional authority, 
or tin' problem of public policy, the deeper question of 
human right and wrong lay at tin- bottom of the slavery 
controversy. 

The Republican National Convention, which made 
"No Extension of Slavery" its principal tenet, met at 
Chicago, May Hi. i860. Seward was the leading can- 
didate; hut tin- more conservative delegates opposed 
him as being too radical, and. uniting their forces, Domi- 
nated Lincoln, who was elected president of the United 
States after an unusually animated political campaign, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I 

November 6, I860, 1 and inaugurated at Washington, 
March 4, 1861. Meanwhile a formidable movement, 
begun by South Carolina a month before the November 
election, and based on the slavery agitation, had carried 
the Slave States South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, 
Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas into seces- 
sion. A provisional government under the designation 
" The Confederate States of America," with Jefferson 
Davis as president, was organized by the seceding 
States, who seized by force nearly all the forts, arsenals, 
and public buildings within their limits. Great divi- 
sion of sentiment existed in the North, whether in this 
emergency acquiescence or coercion was the preferable 
policy. Lincoln's inaugural address declared the Union 
perpetual and acts of secession void, and announced the 
determination of the Government to defend its autho- 
rity, and to hold the forts and places yet in its possession. 
On the other hand he disclaimed any intention to in- 
vade, subjugate, or oppress the seceding States. " You 
can have no conflict," he said, " without being your- 
selves the aggressors." Fort Sumpter in Charleston 
Harbor had been besieged by the secessionists since 
January ; and it being now on the point of surrender 
through starvation, Lincoln sent the besiegers official 
notice on April 8 that a fleet was on its way to carry 
provisions to the fort, but that he would not attempt to 
reinforce it unless this effort were resisted. The Con- 
federates, however, immediately ordered its reduction, 
and after a thirty-four hours' bombardment the garrison 
capitulated, April 13, 1861. 

With civil war thus provoked, Lincoln, on April 15, 
by proclamation called 75,000 three months' militia 
under arms, and on May 4 ordered the further en- 
listment of 64,748 soldiers and 18,000 seamen for three 
years' service. He instituted a blockade of the Southern 

1 The popular vote cast for electors stood: Lincoln, 1,866, 
462; Douglas, 1,375,157; Breckinridge, 847,953 ; Bell, 590,631. 
The official vote cast by the electors on December 5, 1860, and 
counted and declared by Congress on February 13, 1861, was : Lin- 
coln, 180 ; Breckinridge, 72 ; Bed, 39 ; Douglas, 12] 



8 ABB \11AM I. IN' "I.N. 

ports, took effective steps to extemporize a navy, con- 
vened Congress in special session, and asked for legis- 
lation and authority to make the war " short, sharp, and 
. 1 1 - < i >- i \ t - . " The country responded with enthusiasm to 
his summons and suggestions; and the South on its 
side was aot less active. The Sumter bombardment 
rapidly developed and increased the limits of insur- 
rection. Four additional Slave States drifted into 
ssion; the Unionists maintained ascendancy in Ma- 
ryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and succeeded in divid- 
ing Virginia. Minor engagements soon took place 
between the opposing forces; and on July 21, 1801, 
the first important battle was fought at Bull Run, and 
resulted in the defeat and panic of the Unionists. 

The slavery question presented vexatious difficulties 
in conducting the war. .Acute observers could not fail 
to note that its gigantic agencies were beginning to 
work in the direction of practical abolition. Congress 
in August, 1861, passed an Act confiscating rights of 
slave-owners to slaves employed in hostile service 
against the Union. On August 31 General Fremont 
by military order declared martial law and confiscation 
against active enemies, with freedom to their slaves in 
the State of Missouri. Believing that under existing 
conditions such a step was both detrimental in pr< 
policy and unauthorized in law, Presidenl Lincoln di- 
rected him to modify the order to make it conform t<> 
the Confiscation Act of Congress. Strong political fac- 
tions were instantly formed for and against military 
emancipation, and the Government was hotly beset by 
antagonistic counsel. The Unionists of the Border 
Slave States were greatly alarmed, but Lincoln by his 
moderate conservatism held them to the military sup- 
port of the Government. .Meanwhile he sagaciously 
prepared the way for the supreme act of statesmanship 
which the gathering national crisis already dimly fore- 
shadowed. <>n March 6, 1862, he sent a special message 
I., Congress recommending the passage of a resolution 

offering pecuniary aid fr the general government to 

in. luce States to adopl gradual abolishment ot slavery. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 9 

Promptly passed by Congress, the resolution produced 
no immediate result except in its influence on public 
opinion. A practical step, however, soon followed. In 
April Congress passed and the President approved an 
Act emancipating slaves in the District of Columbia, 
with compensation to owners — a measure which Lin- 
coln had proposed when in Congress in 1849. Mean- 
while slaves of loyal masters were constantly escaping 
to military camps. Some commanders excluded them 
altogether; others surrendered them on demand; while 
still others sheltered and protected them against their 
owners. Lincoln tolerated this latitude as falling prop- 
erly within the military discretion pertaining to local 
army operations. A new case, however, soon demanded 
his official interference. On the 9th of May, 1862, 
General Hunter, commanding in the limited areas 
gained along the southern coast, issued a short order 
declaring his department under martial law, and add- 
ing : " Slavery and martial law in a free country are 
altogether incompatible. The persons in these three 
States — Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina — here- 
tofore held as slaves, are, therefore declared for ever 
free." As soon as this order, by the slow method of 
communication by sea, reached the newspapers, Lincoln, 
May 19, published a proclamation declaring it void ; 
adding further : " Whether it be competent for me, as 
commander-in-chief of the army and navy, to declare 
the slaves of any State or States free, and whether at 
any time or in any case it shall have become a necessity 
indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to 
exercise such supposed power, are questions which un- 
der my responsibility I reserve to myself, and which I 
cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of com- 
manders in the field. These are totally different 
questions from those of police regulations in armies 
or camps." But in the same proclamation Lincoln 
recalled to the public his own proposal, and the assent 
of Congress, to compensate States which would adopt 
voluntary and gradual abolishment. "To the people 
of these States now," he added, " I most earnestly ap- 



I" ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

peal. I do not argue, — I beseech you to make the 
argument for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, 
be blind to the signs of the times." Meanwhile, the 
antislavery sentiment of the North constantly in- 
creased. During June, Congress, by express Act, pro- 
hibited the existence of slavery in all territories outside 
of States. On July 12 the President called the rep- 
resentatives of the Border Slave States to the executive 
mansion, and once more urged upon them his proposal 
of compensated emancipation. "If the war continues 
long," he said, "as it must if the object be not sooner 
attained, the institution in your States will be extin- 
guished by mere friction and al>rasi<m — by the mere 
incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will 
have nothing valuable in lieu of it." While Lincoln's 
appeal brought the Border States to no practical deci- 
sion, it served to prepare public opinion for his final 
act. During the month of July his own mind reached 
the virtual determination to give slavery its coup d( 
(/race, and he wrote and submitted to his cabinet the 
draft of an emancipation proclamation substantially as 
afterward issued. Serious military reverses constrained 
him for the present to withhold it. while on the other 
hand they served to increase the pressure upon him from 
antislavery men. Horace Greeley having addressed a 
public letter to him complaining of "the policy you 
seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of the 
rebels," the President replied, August 22,saying: "My 
paramount object is to save the Union, and not either 
to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union 
without freeing any slave. I would do it; if I could 
save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if 
I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I 
would also do that." Thus still holding back violent 
reformers with one hand, and leading up halting con- 
servatives with the other, he on September 13 replied, 
among other things, to an address from a delegation: 
"I do not want to issue a document that the whole 
world will Bee must necessarily be inoperative, like the 
Tope's ]},,)] -.gainst the Comet. ... I view this matter 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 11 

as a practical war measure, to be decided on according 
to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the 
suppression of the Rebellion. ... I have not decided 
against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold 
the matter under advisement." 

The year 1862 had opened with important Union 
victories. Grant captured Forts Henry and Donelson, 
and won the Battle of Shiloh. Burnside took posses- 
sion of Roanoke Island, on the North Carolina coast. 
The famous contest between the new ironclads, Moni- 
tor and Merrimac, ended in the Confederate vessel 
being beaten back, crippled, and ultimately destroyed. 
Farragut, with a wooden fleet, ran past the twin forts, 
St. Philip and Jackson, compelled the surrender of New 
Orleans, and gained control of the lower Mississippi. 
These successes extended from January to April. The 
succeeding three months brought disaster and discour- 
agement to the Union army. M'Clellan's campaign 
against Richmond was made abortive by his bad gen- 
eralship, and compelled the withdrawal of his army. 
Pope's army, advancing against the same city by another 
line, was beaten back upon Washington in defeat. The 
tide of war, however, once more turned, in the defeat of 
Lee's invading army, at South Mountain and Antietam, 
in Maryland, on the 14th and 17th of September, com- 
pelling him to retreat. 

With public opinion thus ripened by alternate defeat 
and victory, President Lincoln, on September 22, 1862, 
issued his preliminary proclamation of emancipation, 
giving notice that on the 1st of January, 1863, "all per- 
sons held as slaves within any State, or designated 
part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in re- 
bellion against the United States, shall be ihen % thence- 
forward, and forever free." In his message to Congress 
on the 1st of December following, he again urged his 
plan of gradual, compensated emancipation, " as a 
means, not in exclusion of, but additional to, all 
others for restoring and preserving the national au- 
thority throughout the Union." On the first day of 
January, 1863, the final proclamation of emancipation 



\- ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

was duly issued, designating the Stales of Arkansas, 
Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South 
Carolina, North Carolina, and certain portions of Loui- 
siana and Virginia as "this day in rebellion against 
the United States," and proclaiming that, in virtue of 
his authority as commander-in-chief, and as a necessary 
war measure for suppressing rebellion, " I do order and 
declare that all persons held as slaves within said desig- 
nated States and parts of States are and henceforward 
shall be \'vrv<" and pledgingthe executive and military 
power of the Government to maintain such freedom. 
The legal validity of these proclamations was never 
pronounced upon by the national courts ; but their de- 
crees, gradually enforced by the march of armies, were 
soon recognized by public opinion to be practically irre- 
versible. Sm-li dissatisfaction as they caused m the 
Border Slave States died out in the stress of war. The 
systematic enlistment of negroes, and their incorpora- 
tion into the army by regiments, hitherto only tried as 
exceptional experiments, were now pushed with vigor, 
and. being followed by several conspicuous instances of 
their gallantry on the battlefield, added another strong 
impulse to the sweeping change of popular sentiment. 
To put the finality of emancipation beyond all question, 
Lincoln, in the winter session of 1863-64, strongly sup- 
ported a movement in Congress to abolish slavery by 
('(institutional Amendment, but the necessary 1 wo-t birds 
vote of the House could not then be obtained. In his 
Annual Message ofDecember6, L864, he urged tin- im- 
mediate passage of the measure. Congress now acted 
promptly. On January 31, 1865, thai body, by joint re- 
solution, proposed to the States the Thirteenth Amend- 
ment of the Federal Constitution, providing that "neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punish- 
ment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly 
convicted, shall exisl within the United State-, or any 
place subject to their jurisdiction." Before the end of 
that year, twenty-seven out of the thirty-six States of 
the Union (being the required three fourths) had rati- 
fied the amendment, and official proclamation, made 
December 18, L865, declared it duly adopted. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 13 

The foreign policy of President Lincoln, while sub- 
ordinate in importance to the great questions of the 
Civil War, nevertheless presented several difficult and 
critical problems for his decision. Towards the close 
of 1861 the arrest by Captain Wilkes of two Con- 
federate envoys proceeding to Europe in the British 
steamer Trent seriously threatened peace with Eng- 
land. Public opinion in America almost unanimously 
sustained the act; but Lincoln, convinced that the pro- 
ceeding had been unlawful, promptly, upon the sugges- 
tion of England, ordered the liberation of the prisoners. 
A still broader foreign question grew out of Mexican af • 
fairs, when events, culminating in the setting up of Maxi- 
milian of Austria as Emperor, under the protection of 
French troops, demanded the constant watchfulness of 
the United States. Lincoln's course was one of prudent 
moderation. France voluntarily declared that she 
sought in Mexico only to satisfy injuries done her, and 
not to overthrow or establish local government, or to 
appropriate territory. The United States Government 
replied that, relying on these assurances, it would main- 
tain strict non-intervention, — at the same time openly 
avowing the general sympathy of its people with a 
Mexican republic, and that " their own safety, and the 
cheerful destiny to which they aspire, are intimately 
dependent on the continuance of free republican insti- 
tutions throughout America." In the early part of 
1863 the French Government proposed a mediation 
between the North and the South. This offer Presi- 
dent Lincoln declined to consider, Seward replying for 
him that it would only be entering into diplomatic dis- 
cussion with the Rebels whether the authority of the 
Government should be renounced, and the country 
delivered over to disunion and anarchy. 

The Civil War gradually grew to dimensions beyond 
all expectation. By January, 1863, the Union armies 
numbered near a million men, and were kept up to this 
strength till the end of the struggle. The Federal war 
debt eventually reached the sum of $2,700,000,000. 
The fortunes of battle were somewhat fluctuating dur- 



14 ai:i: \ H \ M LINCOLN. 

ing the firel half of 1863, but the beginning of July 
broughl tlif [Jnion forces decisive victories. The re- 
duction of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, with other 
operations, restored complete control of the Mississippi, 
severing the Southern Confederacy. In the Bast, Lee 
had the second time marched his army into Pennsylva- 
nia, to suffer a disatrous defeat al Gettysburg on July 
1-3, though Ik-' was able to^ ithdraw his shattered forces 
south of the Potomac. At the dedication of this battle- 
field as a soldiers' cemetery in November, President 
Lincoln made the following oration, which has taken 
permanent place as a classic in American literature: — 

" Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 
this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty ami dedicated to 
the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are en- 
' in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any 
nation so conceived and bo dedicated, can long endure. We are 
met on a ureal battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate 
a portion of that field as a final resting-place fur those who here nave 
their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and 
proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot 
dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. 
The brave men, living ami dead, who struggled here have conse- 
crated it tar above our poor power to add or detract. The world 
will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can 
never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to he 
dedicated hen' to the unfinished work which they who fought here 
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining before us, — that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which 
they gave the last full measure of devotion, — that we here highly 
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this na- 
tion, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth." 

In the unexpected prolongation of the war, volunteer 

enlistments became ton slow to replenish the waste of 
armies, ami in lsi;:; the Government was forced to re- 
sort to a draft. The enforcement of the conscription 
created n inch opposition in various parts of the country, 
and led to a serious riol in the city of New York on 
.Inly 1:!. Presidenl Lincoln executed the draft with all 
possible justice and forbearance, hut refused every im- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 15 

portunity to postpone it. It was made a special subject 
of criticism by the Democratic party of the North, 
which was now organizing itself, on the basis of a 
discontinuance of the war, to endeavor to win the 
presidential election of the following year. Mr. Val- 
landigham of Ohio, having made a violent public speech 
against the war and military proceedings, was arrested 
by General Burnside, tried by military commission, and 
sentenced to imprisonment; a writ of habeas corpus 
was refused, and the sentence was changed by the 
President 'to transportation beyond the military lines. 
By way of political defiance, the Democrats of Ohio 
nominated Vallandigham for governor. Prominent 
Democrats and a committee of the convention having 
appealed for his release, Lincoln wrote two long letters 
in reply, discussing the constitutional question, and de- 
claring* that, in his judgment, the president, as com- 
mander-in-chief in time of rebellion or invasion, holds 
the power and. responsibility of suspending the privi- 
lege of the writ of habeas corpus, but offering to release 
Vallandigham if the committee would sign a declara- 
tion that rebellion exists, that an army and navy are 
constitutional means to suppress it, and that each of 
them would use his personal power and influence to 
prosecute the war. This liberal offer, and their refusal 
to accept it, counteracted all the political capital they 
hoped to make out of the case ; and public opinion was 
still more powerfully influenced in behalf of the Pres- 
ident's action, by the pathos of the query which he 
propounded in one of his letters : " Must I shoot the 
simple-minded soldier-boy who deserts, while I must 
not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to 
desert ? " When the election took place in Ohio, Val- 
landigham was defeated by a majority of more than a 
hundred thousand. 

Many unfounded rumors of a willingness on the part 
of the Confederate States to make peace were circu- 
lated from time to time to weaken the Union war 
spirit. To all such suggestions, up to the time ot 
issuing his emancipation proclamation, Lincoln an- 



[6 ABRAHAM LINC01 N. 

nounced his readiness to Btop fighting and grant am- 
nesty whenever they would submit to and maintain 
the national authority under the constitution of the 
United State-. Certain agents in Canada having, in 
1864, intimated thai they were empowered to treat for 
peace, Lincoln, through Greeley, tendered them safe 
conducl i" Washington. They were by this forced to 
confess that they possessed no authority to negotiate. 
The President thereupon sent them, and made public, 
the following standing offer: — 

■• To whom it may concern: — 

Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the 
integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and 
which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies 
now at war against the United Status, will be received and considered 
by the Executive Government of the United States, and will be 
met by liberal terms on substantial and collateral points, and the 
bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct Loth ways. 

"Abraham Lincoln." 

"July 18, 1864." 

A noteworthy conference on this question took place 

near the close of the Civil War, when the strength of the 
Rebellion was almosl exhausted. F. P. Blair, senior, a 
persona] friend of Jefferson Davis, acting solely on his 
own responsibility, was permitted to go from Washing- 
ton to Etichm I, where, after a private and unofficial 

interview, Davis, in writing, declared his willingness to 
enter a conference "to secure peace to the two coun- 
tries." Reporl being duly made to President Lincoln, 
he wrote a note consenting to receive any agent scut 
informally " with a view of securing peace to the people 
of our common country." Upon the basis of this latter 
proposition, three Confederate commissioners finally 
came to Hampton Roads, where President Lincoln and 
tary Seward met them, and on February o, I *<"•;">, 
an informal conference of four hours' duration was held. 
Private reports of the interview agree substantially in 
the statement that the Confederates proposed a ces- 
sation of the Civil War, and postponement of its issues 
for future adjustment; while for the present t he belli- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 17 

gerents should unite in a campaign to expel the French 
from Mexico, and to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. 
President Lincoln, however, declined the ensnaring al- 
liance and adhered to the instructions he had given 
Seward before deciding to personally accompany him. 
These formulated three indispensable conditions to ad- 
justment: first, the restoration of the national authority 
throughout all the States ; second, no receding by the 
executive of the United States on the slavery question ; 
third, no cessation of hostilities short of an end of the 
war and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the 
Government. These terms the commissioners were 
not authorized to accept, and the interview ended 
without result. 

As Lincoln's first presidential term of four years 
neared its end, the Democratic party gathered itself for 
a supreme effort to regain the ascendancy lost in 1860. 
The slow progress of the war, the severe sacrifice of 
life in campaign and battle, the enormous accumulation 
of public debt, arbitrary arrests and suspension of ha- 
beas corpus, the rigor of the draft, and the proclamation 
of military emancipation furnished ample subjects of 
bitter and vindictive campaign oratory. A partisan 
coterie which surrounded M'Clellan loudly charged 
the failure of his Richmond campaign to official inter- 
ference in his plans. Vallandigham had returned to his 
home in defiance of his banishment beyond military 
lines, and was leniently suffered to remain. The ag- 
gressive spirit of the party, however, pushed it to a 
fatal extreme. The Democratic National Convention 
adopted, August 29, 1864, a resolution declaring the 
war a failure, and demanding a cessation of hostilities. 
It nominated M'Clellan for president, and instead of 
adjourning sine die, as usual, remained organized, and 
subject to be convened at any time and place by the 
executive national committee. This threatening atti- 
tude, in conjunction with alarming indications of a 
conspiracy to resist the draft, had the effect to thor- 
oughly consolidate the war party, which had on June 8 
unanimously renominated Lincoln. At the election held 



1 s LBBAB \M 1 IN' .'IN. 

November B, L864, Lincoln received 2,216,076 of the 
popular votes, and M'Clellan but L,808,725; while of 
the presidential electors 2i2 voted for Line. .In and '21 
for M'Clellan. Lincoln's second term of office began 
March -I. L865. 

While this political contesl was going on, the Civil 
War was being broughl to a decisive close. Grant, at 
the head of the army of the Potomac, followed Lee 
from before Washington to Richmond and Petersburg, 
and held him in siege to within :i few days of final sur- 
render. Sherman, commanding the bulk oi the Onion 
forces in the Mississippi Valley, swept in a victorious 
march through the heart of the Confederacy, to Savannah 
■ in the coast, and thence northward to North Carolina. 
■ racuated Richmond April -J, and was overtaken 
by Granl and compelled to surrender his entire army 
April 9, L865. Sherman pushed Johnston to a surren- 
der April 26. This ended the war, the submission of 
scattering detachments following soon after. 

Lincoln being at the time on a visit to the army, en- 
tered Richmond the day after its surrender. Returning 
to Washington, he made his last public address on the 
evening of April 11, devote. 1 mainly to the question 
of reconstructing loyal governments in the conquered 
States. On the evening of April 14 he attended Ford's 
Theatre in Washington. While seated with his family 
and friends, absorbed in the play, John Wilkes Booth, 
an actor, who with others had prepared a plot to as- 
sassinate the several heads of Government, went into 
the little corridor leading to the upper stage-box, and 
secured it against ingress by a wooden bar. Then, 
stealthily entering the box, he discharged a pistol at 
the head of the President from behind, the ball penetrat- 
ing the brain. Brandishing a huge knife, with which 
be wounded Colonel Rathbone who attempted to hold 
him, the asxi<sin inshed through the stage-box to the 
fro ut and leaped down upon the stage, escaping behind 
the scenes and from the rear of the building, but was 
pursued, and twelve days afterwards shot in a barn 
where he had concealed himself. The wounded Presi- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 19 

dent was borne to a house across the street, where he 
breathed his last at 7 a.m., April 15, 1865. 

In 1842 he had married Mary Todd, also of Ken- 
tucky, who bore him four children. Only one son, 
Robert T. Lincoln, survives, who is at this date, 1882, 
Secretary of War of the United States. 

President Lincoln was of unusual stature, six feet 
four inches, and of spare but muscular build; he had 
been in youth remarkably strong and skilful in the ath- 
letic games of the frontier, where, however, his popu- 
larity and recognized impartiality oftener made him an 
umpire than a champion. He had regular and prepos- 
sessing features, dark complexion, broad, high forehead, 
prominent cheek bones, gray, deep-set eyes, and bushy, 
black hair, turning to gray at the time of his death. 
Abstemious in his habits, he possessed great physical 
endurance. He was almost as tender-hearted as a wo- 
man. "I have not willingly planted a thorn in any 
man's bosom," he was able to say. His patience was 
inexhaustible. He had naturally a most cheerful and 
sunny temper, was highly social and sympathetic, loved 
pleasant conversation, wit, anecdote, and laughter. Be- 
neath this, however, ran an undercurrent of sadness ; 
he was occasionally subject to hours of deep silence and 
introspection that approached a condition of trance. In 
manner he was simple, direct, void of the least affecta- 
tion, and entirely free from awkwardness, oddity, or 
eccentricity. His mental qualities were a quick ana- 
lytic perception, strong logical powers, a tenacious 
memory, a liberal estimate and tolerance of the opin- 
ions of others, ready intuition of human nature ; and 
perhaps his most valuable faculty was rare ability to 
divest himself of all feeling or passion in weighing mo- 
tives of persons or problems of state. His speech and 
diction were plain, terse, forcible. Relating anecdotes 
with appreciative humor and fascinating dramatic skill, 
he used them freely and effectively in conversation and 
argument. He loved manliness, truth, and justice. He 
despised all trickery and selfish greed. In arguments 



20 ABRAHAM MM n|,\. 

at the bar he was so fair to his opponenl thai he fre- 
quently appeared to concede awaj his client's case. 
He \\ as «-\ er ready to take blame on himself and bestow 

praise < thers. "I claim no1 to have controlled 

events," he said, "but confess plainly thai events have 
controlled me." The Declaration of Independence wras 
his political chart and inspiration. He acknowledged a 
universal equality of human rights. "Certainly the 
negro is nol our equal in color," he said, "perhaps no1 
in many other respects; still, in the right to put into 
his mouth ilie bread that his own hands have earned, 
he is the equal of every other man, white or black." He 
had unchanging faith in self-government. "The peo- 
ple," !n said, "are the rightful masters of both con- 
gresses and courts, nol to overthrow the Constitution, 
Liu to overthrow the men who perverl the Constitu- 
tion." Yielding and accommodating in non-essen- 
tials, he was inflexibly firm in a principle or position 
deliberately taken. "Let us have faith that righl 
makes might," lie said, "and ill that faith lei us to the 
end dare to d<> our duty as we understand it." The 
Emancipation Proclamation once issued, he reiterated 
bis purpose never to retract or modify it. "There have 
been men base enough," he said, '-to propose to me to 
return to slavery our hlaek warriors of Tort Hudson 
and Olustee, and thus win the respecl of the masters 

they fought. Should J do so. I should deserve to be 
damned in time and eternity. Come what will, I will 
keep my faith with friend and foe." Benevolence and 

forgiveness were the very hasis of his character: his 
world-wide humanity i> aptly embodied in a phrase of 
bis second inaugural: "with malice toward none, with 
charity for all." His nature was deeply religious, but 
he belonged to no denomination; he had faith in the 
i ternal justice and boundless mercy of Providence, and 
made the Golden Rule of Christ his practical creed. 
Historj musl accord him a rare sagacity in guiding a 
ureal people through the perils of a mighty revolution, 
an admirable singleness of aim. a skilful discernment 

and COUrageOUS seizure of the golden moment to \'vvr 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 21 

his nation from the incubus of slavery, faithful adher- 
ence to law, and conscientious moderation in the use of 
power, a shining personal example of honesty and pu- 
rity, and finally the possession of that subtle and 
indefinable magnetism by which he subordinated and 
directed dangerously disturbed and perverted moral 
and political forces to the restoration of peace and con- 
stitutional authority to his country, and the gift of 
liberty to four millions of human beings. Architect of 
his own fortunes, rising with every opportunity, mas- 
tering every emergency, fulfilling every duty, he not 
only proved himself pre-eminently the man for the 
hour, but the signal benefactor of posterity. As states- 
man, ruler, and liberator, civilization will hold his name 
in perpetual honor. 



